ABSS staff left angry and confused after budget blow

Five hundred thousand dollars is enough to paint three Alamance-Burlington schools.

There are 36 schools.

Monday night’s county budget hearing concluded with a 3–2 vote to add $500,000 to the $41 million offered to the school system, leaving it $5.5 million short of the $47 million requested.

County Commissioner Amy Galey told the crowd the addition is to help pay for maintenance and repairs, doubling the amount the county gave ABSS for capital needs to $1 million, but Superintendent Bill Harrison isn’t singing her praises.

“I’m disappointed. I was disappointed that an elected board would listen to three hours of public address and then just totally dismiss it,” Harrison said.

All but two of the 41 people who spoke requested more funding for the school system during the four-hour meeting, which finally wrapped up around 11 p.m.

Board of Education member Patsy Simpson sat through the hearing with five other members of the board, and said the commissioners’ minds were made up well before it even started.

“It could’ve been Jesus Christ walking in there and standing at the podium telling them to fund the schools, and they still would’ve said no,” Simpson said. “I believe they were fulfilling the obligation of a public hearing, but they didn’t want to hear anything at all.”

Simpson said Galey’s suggestion that the school system start a nonprofit to fund what the county won’t is “absurd,” and taxpayers should not have to donate money to a public school system they’re already paying for. She added that Galey has gone back on campaign promises that she would support public education, and that it’s “time to vote her out.”

“It was just a public persona, and we bought the snake oil. She’s fake all the time. … She says she’s not scared of anybody. Well, she better be scared of our votes.” Simpson said.

Galey says supporting public education shouldn't mean raising taxes.

“I did promise to support public education, and we passed a budget with an 8.22 percent increase in the school system’s budget, over $3.1 million. Nobody can point to any time where I promised a tax increase were I elected because I never did,” Galey said.

She pointed out that the majority of the comments made Monday night focused on problems with infrastructure. The additional $500,000 for capital improvements is what was asked for, she said.

“The school board requested a 20 percent increase of over $8 million, and in the future we’re looking at how to fund redistricting. We can say that’s too much and still support public education and still support the strategic plan. … I did my research. I did everything that I could think of to make an informed decision for the county’s budget. It’s a budget for the whole county, not just the school system,” she added.

Former Alamance-Burlington and Regional Teacher of the Year Kevin Scharen, who currently teaches at the ABSS Early/Middle College, doesn't agree. He was one of many teachers who requested off from his second job to attend and speak Monday night, and he says he was shocked by the vote.

“You have 40 people speak, but one farmer can get up and say, ‘Well I don’t want it to affect my taxes,’ and they’ll say the no’s have it. It’s asinine to me, as if none of us pays taxes, we only collect the profits,” Scharen said.

More than 20 percent of the county is younger than 19, he said, outnumbering those 55 and over, so treating a tax increase as a huge burden to the older population of the county is misleading.

“What causes property values to go up? It goes up when you make that investment in education and you have dollars being appropriated correctly,” Scharen said.

BUT THE VOTES have been cast, and given a budget that’s $5.5 million short of what the school system needed, Harrison said, sacrifices will have to be made.

In addition to mandatory inflationary costs that need to be covered, ABSS has close to $500,000 invested in specialized programs, meaning they’re now $300,000 to $400,000 in the hole, and money will have to be taken from the already-drained fund balance.

At $3,255,608, the ABSS fund balance is only 1.8 percent of the school system’s total operating budget.

If an emergency situation — such as the tornado that leveled the Courtney Elementary School gymnasium and other parts of the school in Yadkin County in late May — struck the school system, it would be disastrous.

Scharen said the entire school system is at a loss.

“This is not a matter of greed, but necessity. … Every one of us is angered by it. You gave one-12th of what was asked for, and I just — I don’t know what’s going to change the minds of these people,” he said.

Reporter Jessica Williams can be reached at jessica.williams@thetimesnews.com or at 336-506-3046. Follow her on Twitter at @jessicawtn.

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